International Women's Day 2025

In reflecting on International Women's Day 2025 and Abianda's efforts to mark the event this year, it is perhaps unsurprising that I have concluded that every day is international women’s day for the Abianda team.

I founded the organisation 11 years ago precisely to #AccelerateChange (this year's theme), in making sure that young women’s experiences were visible in systems and services that tend not to be designed for them. In fact, it has often felt like an urgent race against the clock to amplify young women’s voices and experiences and bring about the change that we need to see to keep them safe, and that young women want in their lives.  

So to a certain extent International Women’s Day is business as usual - we might try and shout about what we are doing on social media a bit - but every day and every week we work in pursuit of change. Do I sound cynical? I am not. The day is really important in order to remind us of the amazing work that takes place around the world in support of equity and parity for women and girls, and to highlight the scale of the work still needing to be done to address oppression and discrimination. 

So what did the Abianda team do last week leading up to #IWD25? We continued to deliver our one-to-one service to young women and girls in Islington Council as well as our group work with young women who engage with the brilliant New Horizons Youth Centre and Lift Youth Hub. We worked with our Young Women’s Advisory Group in support of their own campaigning work and social media launch on Instagram (watch this space). And, as usual, the team were super busy out and about. @fiona spoke at the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) event on assessing girls and young women in youth justice system, as well as the Safeguarding Adolescents conference for Healthcare Conferences (thanks both for having us). We had team members at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation event on the impact of pornography on young people. We also attended the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre event, reviewing 10 years of the Modern Day Slavery Act. We pleased to hear Jess Phillips say "I'm not interested in just 'having something to announce' I'm interested in calling a young woman who I've met through this work and telling her 'we are going to make this better, because of you'." Meaningful change felt by those affected by the problem is what we also want to see.

Myself and our Partnerships Coordinator Leanda Lewis spent the day with a group of powerhouse women (Monica Manoras, Amma Greenstreet, Sarah Bell, Mel Kenny Kate Broughton) at the Media Trust annual #WomensVoices25 event - benefiting from their wisdom and support to develop a campaign launch for our excellent new training programmes.

And our Participation team and Young Women's Advisory Group took young people to wonderful Sculpting Self: a creative clay workshop hosted by Islington Museum. A session of exploration and expression for IWD. 

In any given week I am in conversation with women who I have so much admiration for, and whose achievements and integrity astound me! Last week these conversations happened to include Clare Walkeden MCIPR Dip. Coach, Helen Beckett, Jess Southgate, Dez Holmes Naomi King, Assoc CIPD, Pippa Goodfellow.

And shout out to Arsenal F.C. and adidas for tickets for the FA cup between Arsenal and Liverpool Women's teams - a great way to round off IWD25 weekend.

So that’s a snap shot of our efforts to #AccelerateChange for girls and young women - on any given day of the year.

So while we work with relentless effort and urgency for young women and girls, perhaps the most important thing is slowing down. “If we want to move fast, we need to move slow”. Creating time for the team to breathe, reflect, laugh, share and collaborate is a fundamental pillar of being effective in our work and when at such 

close proximity to trauma.

I celebrated #IDW25 on Saturday by slowing down, by being in the nourishing company of my oldest and dearest friends. In a hot tub drinking tea and eating biscuits. Perfect. Because when working at such pace and urgency we must prioritise time to refuel and replenish our resources, so we can go back in resilient and keep fighting the good fight.

Abi Billinghurst

Founder and CEO